Laura and I went for a walk up the road today. We usually get to the end, turn around and come back. Today though, our intention wasn’t to turn around, but to head down one of the snowmobile trails to see exactly what was going on. A buddy of mine, who lives at the top of the road, told me that he and his wife have three walks they take – a two mile, a six mile and a seven mile. We know the two mile. That’s just down the road and back. We have no idea what the others are and that’s kind of why we wanted to head down the trail.

The river that runs along the back of our property also runs parallel to the road we live on, so if we were to walk to the top of the road and make a right down the trail, we’d have to cross the river. I can’t really see what’s going on down there on Google Earth and have been wondering how in the world these snowmobiles have been getting by. I’m aware that the trails are maintained by snowmobile clubs, but really have no knowledge of anything beyond that.

Boy were we in for a surprise. First, we found that you can totally walk on snowmobile trails. The snow is packed and it’s not like walking in the back yard. That was a huge plus. We’ve been avoiding the area because we thought we’d have to trudge through and lose all interest after a short while. That wasn’t the case.

Second, about a quarter mile in, we found an old house foundation made of stone. I’d say it’s about eight feet deep. It’s really interesting, so we’re going to focus on that at a later date. Third, right after the foundation, we crossed a small bridge that spanned a tiny stream. I thought this stream was the river that ran along the property. I thought that since it was a mile up-stream, it was smaller. I was wrong.

Just a short distance past the stream, we started hearing rushing water. I thought it was cars driving on a road, but quickly remembered that we were in the middle of the woods. There were no cars. We walked a bit further and found this:

And what we didn’t know was that the snowmobile trails didn’t only cross the finely crafted larger bridge, they also ran up along the river heading towards only who knows where. Here are two pictures of that:

The only bad part was that we didn’t bring the camera. I had to take these with my phone, so they kind of stink. The sun wasn’t out anyway, so any pictures we did take with the cameras wouldn’t have looked very good.

We’re going to go back this week, or the next time it’s sunny out. The weather forecast is telling me the sun’s supposed to shine on Wednesday, but it’s also supposed to be 3 degrees. I’m not sure I can do that, but we’ll see.

As you can well imagine, we’re pretty excited to live so close to something like this. It feels like a big state park with all those Hemlock trees. And the trails to everywhere – that’s just something else. I can’t seem to “wrap my head around” it and I’m not one for repeating sayings like that.